Ripe for Pleasure

CHAPTER 27   



Viola’s head rocked back as the gaudily dressed gentleman’s lackey backhanded her across the face. She tested her teeth with her tongue, relieved to find they were all still there. Blood pooled in her mouth. She spat onto the already filthy floor of the garret room where they’d taken her.

“Cooper!” The gentleman’s tone was full of reproach, but his mouth was fighting an unmistakable smile. Viola shoved her hair back and held the man’s gaze. “No need to begin quite so roughly. Help Mrs. Whedon to a chair.”

Her hands shook as Cooper half dragged her across the room. A single wooden chair with a broken stretcher sagged beside a grimy window. She fell heavily into the chair, and it creaked alarmingly. No need to begin quite so roughly, but clearly every intention of getting there eventually.

“Now, my dear, a few simple answers and you can go home.”

The promise rang patently false, but her pulse raced all the same. The man’s eyes weren’t merely cold; they were flat. She was a thing when he looked at her, not a person. A thing to be broken and disposed of.

No matter what his questions were or what answers she gave, there was very little chance she’d ever leave this room alive, and they both knew it. The best she could hope for was a delayed sentence while she became Cooper’s plaything.

“How much has my cousin told you about the prince’s treasure?” He twirled his quizzing glass in idle circles, watching the refracted light play across the wall like a child with a cut crystal making rainbows in the nursery.

Viola shook her head, mind racing. The man’s brows rose. He tipped his head as he studied her, eyes tracing over her impersonally. “Cooper?”

The servant’s open hand across her face knocked her from the chair. “I had hoped you’d be reasonable about this, Mrs. Whedon. I’ve no desire to see a woman hurt, not even a whore.”

Viola climbed shakily to her feet. If she stayed on the floor, Cooper’s next blow might be with his foot, and she was fairly certain he’d break a bone if he kicked her. In the distance, a church bell rang and a dog barked furiously.

“I don’t know anything about a prince, or a treasure. I don’t even know who your cousin is.”

The man laughed. “Ah, I’ve been too precipitate. My apologies. The cousin in question is Leonidas Vaughn, and the treasure was sent by the King of France to support Bonnie Prince Charlie’s bid to unseat the Hanoverian usurpers.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Blood trickled out her nose, tracing a searing path across her lips. She wiped it away with her hand. She stared at the dark stain on the yellow kidskin of her glove and shuddered.

“With you? Why everything, my dear. You have it.”

Viola sucked in a breath and wiped her nose again. The gloves were new, but she was very likely going to die today. Her gloves didn’t matter. She should be terrified, but there was no room for such an emotion. Anger filled her, welling up inside her until she was choking on it. She flexed her hands. She could rip out the man’s eyes, but she’d never make it to the door.

“I might be brought round to believing you don’t know you have it.”

She flattened her hands across her stomach, pressing in against her stays, trying to stanch the urge to vomit. Her stays were suddenly too tight, and they seemed to be getting tighter by the moment.

“Lord Leonidas has never mentioned it to me.”

“Would that I could believe you.” He nodded, and the lurking Cooper sent her sprawling onto the floor again. The kick that followed threw her hard against the wall. She retched, stomach muscles fighting hard against canvas and whalebone.

Leo’s cousin took a step toward her. Light flashed off the paste buckles on his shoes. He knelt down, knee beside her head, hand forcing her down hard against the floor.

“The evidence is irrefutable.” The musk of his cologne washed over her as he leaned in closer. “The money is—or was—hidden somewhere in your house. Leo dragged you off to the hinterlands while his friends searched your house—oh yes, don’t look so surprised, my dear. I watched them do it!—and then your relationship ends most abruptly when you return to town. So, we find ourselves with a few possibilities. Either Leo found it and no longer needs you. Or he told you about it, and you decided you no longer need him. Or, my favorite option of all, you already have it. For your sake, I sincerely hope it’s one of the latter.”

Viola shook her head. “I broke it off. Didn’t know anything about the treasure.”

His eyes narrowed. “Unlikely, a woman of your sort throwing away a duke’s son.”

“A younger son.” She tried to sound as dismissive as possible. Whatever this man’s issues with Leo, jealousy was right at the forefront. She could almost smell it. It wafted off him as thickly as the horrible musk he doused himself in. “Throckmorton has more to offer.”

“And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Who has the most to offer. Right now, I’d say that was me.”

He thrust his hand into her hair and held her tight. Viola stiffened and tried to jerk away. His grip tightened until she could feel hairs being ripped from her scalp one by one.

“You really don’t know. Damnation!”

He tossed her away from him and stood in one quick motion, the skirts of his coat flying out over her head like the wings of a predatory bird. He paced across the room, worrying at his gloved thumb with his teeth.

“Letter.” Viola choked on the word.

“So he did show them to you?” The man’s smile of relief sent another chill through her.

“No.” She swallowed, tasting blood. “I could write you one. Tell my servants to give you free rein to search the house yourself.”

“I’ve already searched your house. There’s nothing there, which means Leo has it. I wonder what you’re worth to him?”

The door shook on its hinges, the frame flexing and bulging. An unholy baying leaked past it, and Viola found herself smiling, though it hurt to do so. She knew that bark. The only thing between her, the door, and Pen were two men who had no idea what was about to befall them.

The dog hit the door again. Leo’s cousin took a step backward, drawing a pistol from the pocket of his coat. Viola pushed herself up from the floor, lifted the chair, and swung for his head. It connected with the satisfying sound of wood splintering, and he went sprawling, the gun skittering across the room.


The door gave way with what sounded to Viola like the annunciation of angels—the full-throated growl of one very angry mastiff. Pen launched herself at Cooper, her snarls drowned out by the man’s screams as she knocked him to the ground.

Leo’s cousin scrambled for the gun, then raced toward her. “You bitch.” He caught her by the arm, fingers digging into her.

The open doorway spilled forth a steady stream of men: Leo at the fore, a disheveled and unshaven Sandison at his shoulder, other faces both familiar and unknown all around them. The tide pushed them forward, propelled them inexorably into the room. Her captor’s grip tightened momentarily; then he flung her aside.

Pen took a swipe at one of his cousin’s henchmen, leaving a bloody bite on his thigh. As she raced to Viola, the League surged in behind Leo, grim determination radiating off them in a palpable wave. Charles met his gaze unflinchingly. No apology, no plea, just a haze of anger and hate leaking out his eyes, hot as the blast from a blacksmith’s furnace.

How had they come to this? A year ago, he’d have killed to protect his cousin, and today it was likely he was going to kill him himself. There wasn’t any other way out. Charles raised his gun, thumb cocking the hammer in one fluid motion. The deafening report of multiple shots concussed the air, clouding it with smoke. The burning scent of sulfur curled up his nostrils like the stench of the Thames in August.

Leo dropped his pistol, the dull thud as it hit the floor nearly lost in the shuffling clamor of his friends, his cousin’s strained moan, and the sound of Pen growling deep in her throat as Devere and Sandison subdued the man she’d bitten.

His cousin lay crumpled on the floor, bent over, barely moving. Charles had given him no choice—would have left him in the same condition, had he been a better shot—but Leo’s mouth was filled with the acrid taste of guilt all the same. The choice had been clear: Viola or Charles. But that wasn’t to say it had been simple.

How could it be? Love or family. How to choose? How to live with the choice he’d made…

The sudden silence that enveloped the room felt almost unnatural, fraught with tension, like the pregnant moment between a lightning strike and the inevitable clap of thunder. A floorboard creaked behind him, and the world whirled back into motion. De Moulines was kneeling beside his cousin, Thane was giving orders in a low rumble, and Viola was sobbing on the floor, arms wrapped around a panting, smiling, blood-drenched dog.